If you run a small UK server room – a couple of Dell or HP boxes running Hyper‑V or VMware, some Windows servers, maybe a Linux box or two – you have probably realised two things:
- The hardware is getting old.
- Moving everything to “the cloud” looks more complex (and expensive) than it should be.
When you start looking for Virtual Data Centre (VDC) or Virtual Private Cloud providers in the UK, you quickly run into names like Katapult, Node4, virtualDCS and Exponential‑e. They all talk about virtual data centres, private networking, and high availability – but they are not aimed at the same kind of customer.
This guide compares those providers from the perspective of a UK SME sysadmin who just wants:
- A safe, UK-based home for 2–20 virtual servers
- Fixed, predictable monthly costs
- Private networking between servers (e.g. DB not exposed to the internet)
- Sensible, human support when things go wrong
…and doesn’t want to learn 200 AWS services or sit through three “digital transformation” workshops.
Who’s Who in the UK Virtual Data Centre Market?
Here’s a quick, plain‑English overview of the main players.
Farbyte – Virtual Data Centre for SMEs
Farbyte’s Virtual Data Centre (VDC) gives you a dedicated pool of CPU, RAM and NVMe storage that you can slice into multiple virtual servers, all joined by your own private VLAN. It’s built on KVM, AMD EPYC Gen 4, Ceph triple‑replicated storage, and hosted in UK data centres.
You get transparent online pricing, ability to fine‑tune resources, managed server options, multiple isolated private networks and UK sysadmin-grade support with help around ‘on‑prem’ to VDC migration.
Katapult – Krystal’s Developer‑Focused Cloud
Katapult (from Krystal) is a high-quality UK public cloud designed for developers. You buy individual VMs (“Rocks”/”Boulders”) with fixed bundles of CPU, RAM, NVMe and bandwidth. A VM with 4 vCPU, 12 GB RAM and 100 GB NVMe (“ROCK‑12”) is currently listed at around £70 to £130/month inc. with 4 TB outbound transfer included, depending on their CPU contention classification (Regualr or Dedicated).
It has great tech (EPYC, triple‑replicated NVMe, HA) and clear pricing, but it behaves more like a DigitalOcean/Linode‑style VM cloud than a pooled Virtual Data Centre.
Node4 – Managed Enterprise Virtual Data Centre
Node4 offers a Virtual Data Centre (VDC) platform aimed primarily at larger mid‑market and enterprise customers. It focuses on automated, secure hosting with options like managed firewalls, backups and DR, and is often sold via the UK government G‑Cloud framework.
Node4 emphasises “sensible billing” and PAYG, but does not publish self‑service prices – you go through sales for a quote and usually engage them for broader managed services.
virtualDCS – UK Virtual Private Cloud & DR
virtualDCS runs a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) platform targeting businesses that need hybrid setups, DR and backup. They highlight:
- Logically isolated VPC networks
- UK Tier‑3 data centres
- 99.99% availability
- No ingress or egress/data‑transfer charges on their VPC offering
Again, pricing is by quote. They are strong where DR and compliance are the main drivers.
Exponential‑e – Enterprise‑Grade VDC
Exponential‑e provides a Virtual Data Centre IaaS platform as part of a wider portfolio of connectivity, SD‑WAN, security and managed services. Think Tier‑3 UK data centres, multiple ISO certifications, enterprise‑grade flash storage and 24×7 managed services.
It is very much an enterprise/hybrid cloud play: excellent for large organisations with complex networks, but no “click here to see the price” VDC on the website.
Feature & Pricing Transparency Comparison
To compare these for an SME use case, let’s use a simple reference point:
“I need a few VMs equivalent to a 4 vCPU / 16 GB RAM / 100 GB SSD server, on a private network, in a UK data centre.”
Below is a high‑level comparison:
Pricing Transparency
| Provider | Public Pricing? | Example 4 vCPU Config |
|---|---|---|
| Farbyte VDC | ✅ Yes – custom + bundles | 4 vCPU High Frequency EPYC v4 (50-70% faster than v3), 12 GB, 100 GB from ~£87/mo inc. (Flexible Resource Pool & Migration Support) |
| Katapult | ✅ Yes – full matrix | ROCK-12 (4 vCPU Low-Med Frequency EPYC v3 & v2, 12 GB, 100 GB): £73/mo inc. (Fixed Size VM Only) |
| Node4 | ❌ Quote only | Not published |
| virtualDCS | ❌ Quote only | Not published |
| Exponential-e | ❌ Quote only | Not published |
Private Networking
| Provider | Private Network Type |
|---|---|
| Farbyte VDC | Unmetered, dedicated Gbit private VLAN per tenant with per-VM firewall. |
| Katapult | Private networking with free internal transfer |
| Node4 | VDC platform with secure instances & network services |
| virtualDCS | Logically isolated VPC network (zero-trust) |
| Exponential-e | Integrated “behind your firewall” with custom policies |
Public Bandwidth Model
| Provider | Bandwidth / Egress |
|---|---|
| Farbyte VDC | 1 Gbit public uplink with generous included transfer |
| Katapult | Free inbound; outbound pooled per VM, £0.02/GB overage |
| Node4 | “Free Internet bandwidth” (details via quote) |
| virtualDCS | No ingress or egress/data-transfer charges |
| Exponential-e | Predictable OpEx model (details via quote) |
Storage & High Availability
| Provider | Storage Architecture |
|---|---|
| Farbyte VDC | Ceph-backed NVMe, triple-replicated, node-failure tolerant clustered HA. Weekly DR backup |
| Katapult | Triple-copy NVMe block storage, clustered, HA |
| Node4 | High-performance SSD, UK DCs, DR/backup options |
| virtualDCS | Enterprise hardware in Tier-3 UK DCs; 99.99% availability |
| Exponential-e | Enterprise flash storage, Tier-3 UK DCs, redundant infra |
Support Style
| Provider | Support Model |
|---|---|
| Farbyte VDC | UK sysadmin-led, direct engineer access |
| Katapult | Ticket-led, developer-centric |
| Node4 | 24×7 fully managed IaaS, workshops, DRaaS |
| virtualDCS | UK engineer support, DR/backup add-ons |
| Exponential-e | 24/7 managed services, enterprise focus |
Notes: competitor pricing and features summarised from publicly available information at time of writing; exact offers may change.
1. Pricing Clarity vs “Talk to Sales”
From an SME point of view, one of the biggest pain points is not knowing the number you’ll have to sign off with the boss.
- Farbyte & Katapult are the only two in this list that publish concrete, self‑service prices for CPU/RAM/disk and bandwidth.
- Node4, virtualDCS and Exponential‑e all talk about “transparent” and “predictable” costs, but you only find out the monthly figure after a discovery call or workshop.
If you’re a 5–200 user business with a couple of racks of gear, you probably don’t want to go through a full “cloud transformation” tender just to replace your on‑prem Hyper‑V cluster.
With Farbyte, you can see the cost of your Virtual Data Centre up‑front, adjust resources to match your current VM footprint, and know your monthly bill before you speak to anyone. Deploy in minutes, not weeks.
2. Architecture: Resource Pool vs Individual VPS
The next key question is: are you buying a pool of resources like your existing virtualisation cluster, or a bunch of standalone VPS instances?
- Farbyte VDC gives you a resource pool (CPU, RAM, storage) that you carve into as many VMs as you need. All VMs share one or more private VLAN, and you choose which ones have a public 1 Gbit uplink. With fixed-size VMs (like Katapult’s ‘Rocks’), if you need 8GB RAM but only 1 CPU, you’re forced to overpay for a larger plan. With Farbyte’s Resource Pool, you buy the total RAM you need and slice it exactly how you want – perfect for mismatched workloads like database servers (high RAM, low CPU) or jump boxes (low RAM, low CPU).
- Katapult sells individual VMs with fixed bundles. You can absolutely build a small infrastructure there, but it’s conceptually “a group of VPSs,” not “your own virtual rack” with a shared capacity pool.
- Node4, virtualDCS and Exponential‑e also operate on a VDC/VPC model, but with a strong managed‑services layer on top: they design the pool, do the networking, manage the firewalls and backups, etc., often as part of a larger contract.
If you think in terms of “I have 5 VMs today and might add 2 more later“, Farbyte’s pool model will feel very similar to your existing VMware/Hyper‑V setup – while still letting you start small and grow.
3. Private Networking & Security
For many SMEs, the number‑one technical requirement is:
“I want my internal services (AD, file server, database) not exposed to the internet, but still reachable by my other servers.”
All of these providers offer some form of private networking, but the way they present it is quite different.
- Farbyte: your VMs sit on a dedicated private VLAN. You get per‑VM cloud firewalls and can choose which servers have public internet access and which are internal‑only.
- Katapult: provides private networking and free internal transfer; you can attach virtual networks to your instances and control traffic, but it’s designed for self‑service dev teams rather than “replace your office LAN as‑is.”
- virtualDCS: emphasises a logically isolated VPC network and a zero‑trust approach – similar end goal, but wrapped in a more fully managed service.
- Node4 and Exponential‑e: tightly integrate the VDC with your existing WAN/MPLS, firewalls and remote sites – powerful, but again aimed at larger enterprises with more complex networks.
If your typical setup is “a few Windows servers on a VLAN behind a firewall”, Farbyte’s approach is deliberately familiar: same network concept, different building.
4. Bandwidth and Egress: Avoiding Nasty Surprises
Public cloud horror stories usually come from egress charges – the cost of traffic leaving your VMs.
- Farbyte: offers unmetered internal traffic on your private VLAN, plus a clear included monthly transfer allowance on your 1 Gbit public uplink, with straightforward per‑TB pricing if you need more.
- Katapult: each VM includes a generous outbound allowance (for example, 4 TB on ROCK‑12) and charges around £0.02/GB thereafter. Inbound and internal traffic are free.
- virtualDCS: explicitly states no ingress or egress/data‑transfer charges for its VPC – a strong differentiator if you have very heavy traffic volumes.
- Node4 / Exponential‑e: emphasise “free Internet bandwidth” or “predictable OpEx,” but do not publish exact figures; these are handled case-by-case as part of a contract.
For many SMEs, the ability to explain the whole model in one sentence – “Internal is free, you get X TB public included, and anything above that is £Y per TB” – is more important than shaving the last penny off a GB.
5. Hardware & High Availability
Under the hood, all of these platforms are using serious kit:
- Farbyte: Farbyte uses the latest AMD EPYC Gen 4 (Genoa) processors with DDR5 memory, which are ~50% faster per core than the Gen 3 chips used by many competitors. This means you often need fewer cores to do the same work. NVMe storage on Ceph with triple replication. If a node fails, data already exists on at least two others and VMs can be restarted without restores.
- Katapult: high‑frequency EPYC Gen 2 and Gen 3 CPUs, triple‑replicated NVMe and HA instance options – very strong technology stack.
- virtualDCS: Tier‑3 UK data centres, enterprise hardware, and a 99.99% availability SLA.
- Exponential‑e: enterprise‑grade flash storage and Tier‑3 UK DCs as standard.
- Node4: high‑performance SSD storage and DR/backup options as part of the VDC offering.
The main difference is how much of that complexity you want to be involved in. Farbyte exposes enough detail (EPYC Gen 4, Ceph, NVMe) to reassure technical buyers, without asking you to choose between dozens of instance classes and storage tiers.
6. Support: Who Picks Up the Pieces?
When something goes wrong – a failed migration, a misconfigured firewall, a broken VPN – who is actually going to help?
- Node4, virtualDCS and Exponential‑e offer 24/7 managed services. They’re set up to be long‑term infrastructure partners for larger organisations with complex estates.
- Katapult is more self‑service/dev-focused: great docs, tickets, but not specifically positioned as a “we’ll help you lift‑and‑shift your on‑prem server room” solution.
- Farbyte deliberately focuses on hands‑on, sysadmin‑level help for smaller environments: getting your existing Hyper‑V/VMware and dedicated server workloads into a Virtual Data Centre, locking them down on a private VLAN, and making sure you can sleep at night.
The Farbyte Difference: Others give you a platform; Farbyte gives you a partner. Our pricing includes migration guidance to help you move your existing workloads. We don’t just give you a login; we ensure your servers actually get there.
For a 5-200 user company where “the IT department” is one or two overworked people, that human, non‑enterprise support model can be the deciding factor.
When Is Farbyte the Better Choice?
Farbyte is not trying to replace the big enterprise VDCs, and it isn’t trying to be “UK AWS”. It’s a good fit when:
- You currently run 2–20 virtual servers on‑prem and want them “somewhere safe” without redesigning everything.
- You care more about fixed monthly bills than extreme pay‑per‑second elasticity.
- You want a private VLAN, per-VM firewalls and a simple bandwidth model, not a maze of security groups and gateways.
- You’d rather talk to UK engineers than navigate a large corporate helpdesk.
If that sounds like you, the next step is simple:
- Take a list of your current VMs (names, CPU/RAM/disk).
- Plug those numbers into the Farbyte Virtual Data Centre configurator to see your exact monthly cost.
- Book a quick migration chat to sanity‑check the plan and timelines.
You don’t need a six‑figure transformation project to retire your server room. You just need a Virtual Data Centre that looks and feels like the hardware you already understand – only quieter, cooler, and someone else’s problem when a disk dies.